A surgical stapler both staples and cuts tissue to transect that tissue while leaving the cut ends hemostatic. A typical surgical stapler receives at its distal end a disposable single-use cartridge with several rows of staples, and includes an anvil opposed to the cartridge.
Surgical staplers generally are configured to receive surgical staple cartridges so that one tool can be used with multiple cartridges in a surgical procedure. Conventional surgical staplers utilize cartridges with six longitudinal rows of staples, three on either side of a knife. Further, conventional surgical staple cartridges interpose a staple driver between each staple and a wedge; the wedge moves longitudinally and serially contacts the staple drivers, which translate the longitudinal motion of the wedge into motion of the corresponding staples in a second, perpendicular direction toward an anvil. Surgical stapler cartridges manufactured by Dextera Surgical Inc. of Redwood City, Calif. instead utilize four longitudinal rows of staples, two on either side of a knife. Such surgical stapler cartridges further do not utilize staple drivers; instead, the wedge serially contacts staples that are frangibly affixed to a strip, rotates each staple about its point of affixation to the strip to close the staple, and shears each staple from the strip, such as described in commonly-assigned U.S. Pat. No. 7,988,026, which is incorporated by reference herein in its entirety.
Staples in a cartridge typically are arranged in rows that are staggered relative to one another. This staggered arrangement promotes hemostasis in treated tissue, by closing off straight channels through which blood might flow between closed staples. During actuation, typically one staple in each row is formed simultaneously during longitudinal travel of the wedge. However, by forming one staple in each row simultaneously, the forces required to deploy each of those staples are combined. In a conventional manual, non-powered surgical stapler, that requires the user to input a larger force in order to translate the wedge and actuate the stapler. As the force required increases for a particular tool, the number of users capable of actuating the tool decreases.
The use of the same reference symbols in different figures indicates similar or identical items.